One in Three California Teacher Programs Still Fails the Reading Science Test
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Every parent of a child who struggles to read has asked some version of the same question: is my child’s teacher using the right approach? A new national report on teacher preparation gives that question a harder edge. The National Council on Teacher Quality found that 47 percent of the programs it reviewed still fail to adequately train new teachers in the science of reading, with one in five programs earning an outright F. In California, where the state has invested more than one billion dollars since 2020 in literacy reform and passed legislation requiring science-of-reading training for teacher candidates, about a third of teacher preparation programs still earned an F on a literacy report card. The problem is not that the science is disputed. The problem is that the institutions training tomorrow’s teachers have been slower to change than the laws demanding they do.
TL;DR
NCTQ's June 2026 national report found 47 percent of teacher preparation programs still fail to adequately train new teachers in the science of reading, with 21 percent earning an outright F.
In California, approximately one in three teacher preparation programs earned an F on a literacy report card, worse than the national average, despite more than one billion dollars in state literacy reform investment since 2020.
NCTQ President Heather Peske called the continued failures "a form of educational malpractice against new teachers and the students they will serve."
The science of reading, including the case against three-cueing, has been settled for decades; the obstacle is institutional inertia in teacher training programs, not scientific uncertainty.
States including Mississippi, Colorado, and Indiana show that strong policy combined with program-level follow-through achieves near-universal alignment.
A national report finds nearly half of teacher preparation programs still fail on science-of-reading standards. In California, about one in three programs earned an outright F, even as the state spends more than a billion dollars to fix exactly this problem.
Common questions
How do I know if my child’s teacher was trained in the science of reading?
Ask the school specifically what structured literacy program is being used and whether teachers received formal training on it. Generic answers like “we use phonics” are not specific enough. Ask the program name and when teachers were trained on its implementation. If the school uses leveled readers alongside cue-based strategies, those signal an approach that does not fully align with the science.
What is three-cueing, and why is it a problem for struggling readers?
Three-cueing is a reading approach that teaches children to guess at unfamiliar words by looking at pictures, context, and sentence structure rather than decoding the letters. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg describes this method as descriptive of how poor readers read. Eye-tracking research shows skilled readers process nearly every letter on a page. A program that trains children to guess is training them to read like a struggling reader, not a strong one.
My child is struggling with reading. Should I get a screening?
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. It helps identify where your child’s reading development stands today and which skills need targeted support. If your child might need formal accommodations such as an IEP or 504 plan, or if you suspect a vision, hearing, or medical cause for the difficulty, a professional evaluation is the appropriate route, since that is the only path to those specific supports. A screener fills the gap between “wait and worry” and “get a clinical label.”
What can I do at home if my child’s school is not using science-of-reading methods?
Structured literacy practice at home follows the same principles as evidence-based school instruction: explicit, systematic phonics; phonemic awareness activities that focus on sounds in words; decodable texts that require letter-sound knowledge rather than guessing. The brain you are worried about today is not the brain your child will have after consistent, targeted practice. That is what neuroplasticity research actually shows, and it means parents who understand the science are in a real position to supplement what school delivers.
The National Council on Teacher Quality published its June 2026 Teacher Prep Review, the most comprehensive national look at how teacher preparation programs train aspiring elementary teachers to teach reading. Nationally, 53 percent of reviewed programs now earn an A for adequately covering all five core components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. In 2023, only 26 percent earned an A, so the trend is real.
But 47 percent of programs are still failing on that measure, and 21 percent earned an outright F for teaching multiple outdated or disproven reading practices. NCTQ President Heather Peske did not soften the finding: “This is a form of educational malpractice against new teachers and the students they will serve.”
California’s numbers are worse than the national average. According to EdSource, roughly a third of California teacher preparation programs earned an F on a literacy report card evaluating alignment to science-of-reading standards. This comes after California passed Senate Bill 488, which requires teacher candidates to pass a new literacy performance assessment aligned to science-of-reading principles, and after the state committed more than one billion dollars since 2020 to a birth-through-third-grade literacy pipeline that includes science-of-reading teacher training and mandated literacy coaches.
The contrast with other states makes clear this is a solvable problem. In Mississippi, nine out of ten teacher prep programs earned an A or B. Every one of Colorado’s 17 programs earned an A or B. Twenty-four of Indiana’s 25 programs earned an A. All three states adopted strong policy requirements and followed through at the program level.
Author Quote"
“This is a form of educational malpractice against new teachers and the students they will serve.”
Heather Peske, President, National Council on Teacher Quality
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What the coverage gets wrong
Most coverage of the NCTQ report leads with the improvement story: 53 percent of programs now earn an A, double the 2023 figure. That framing is accurate, but it buries the number that matters most for parents of struggling readers: 47 percent of the programs training tomorrow's teachers are still not adequately teaching the science of reading, and one in five earns an outright F. A coin-flip chance that your child's teacher received adequate reading training is not a success story. Decades of eye-tracking research (Rayner), cognitive science (Seidenberg, Dehaene), and investigative journalism (Hanford, 2019) have established the case for explicit phonics instruction. Framing a 47 percent failure rate as "progress" obscures the institutional resistance that continues to cost struggling readers instruction time they cannot recover.
The Science Settled This Long Before the Laws Changed
The uncomfortable part of this story is not that California is behind. It is that no institution anywhere has an excuse for still training aspiring teachers to use guessing-based reading instruction. The science has been settled for decades.
Eye-tracking research by Keith Rayner established that skilled readers process nearly every letter on a page; they do not guess from pictures and context. Cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg described the three-cueing approach, which teaches children to guess at unfamiliar words using context clues, pictures, and sentence structure rather than decoding the letters, as “descriptive of how poor readers read.” Emily Hanford’s 2019 investigation Sold a Story made this a national story and kick-started the wave of state reading laws. And yet, in 2026, one in five teacher prep programs nationally still teaches multiple practices the science has rejected, and 20 percent still teach two or more of these practices to aspiring teachers.
For parents of children who struggle with reading, this is the mechanism behind something many have already lived: a teacher who is kind, genuinely trying, but who was never trained in what the science says works. The problem is not with the teachers in classrooms. It is with the institutions that trained them. A law requiring science-of-reading alignment does not reach inside a program’s course materials. Only the program can do that, and too many have not.
47 percent of programs still failing nationally: The NCTQ June 2026 report found just over half of teacher preparation programs earn an A for science-of-reading alignment, while 21 percent earn an F for teaching multiple outdated or disproven practices.
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California worse than the national average: Despite investing more than one billion dollars in literacy reform since 2020 and passing SB 488, roughly one in three California teacher preparation programs earned an F on a literacy report card measuring science-of-reading standards.
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Strong state policy shows it is achievable: Mississippi (9 in 10 programs A or B), Colorado (all 17 programs A or B), and Indiana (24 of 25 programs A) demonstrate that the gap between reading law and program reality is not inevitable.
What This Means for Your Child’s Classroom
The practical implication is direct: if your child’s teacher was trained in a California program, there is roughly a one in three chance that program did not adequately cover science-of-reading instruction. That is not a statement about any individual teacher’s ability or effort. It is a statement about the odds, and it is the reason parents cannot simply trust that “the school has a reading program” is enough of an answer.
There is a tradeoff worth naming. California’s reform efforts are real. SB 488, mandated literacy coaches, and a new performance assessment for teacher candidates are structural changes that will improve the pipeline going forward. But structural changes work forward, not backward, and they depend on implementation at the program level. A law requiring science-of-reading training does not train anyone if the program offering that training still earns an F.
The question worth asking your child’s school is not “do you use phonics?” Most administrators will say yes regardless of what the classroom actually looks like. More useful questions are: What structured literacy program is being used? What training did teachers receive on that specific program? How is classroom implementation being monitored? Those questions distinguish a genuine reading approach from a label change. If your child is already struggling, waiting for institutional reform to reach their classroom is not a plan.
Parents of children who struggle with reading are not waiting for institutions to catch up. They are asking sharper questions, building their own knowledge, and looking for approaches that work, because they understand that institutional reform moves in years while a child’s window for early intervention moves in months.
The obstacle named in this report is not a mystery. It is teacher training institutions that have been slow to retire methods the science rejected decades ago. That is not a problem with the teachers in classrooms. It is a problem with the system that prepared them, and with the gap between a law requiring science-of-reading training and a program that still earns an F for teaching against it.
If your child is developing their reading skills with difficulty and you want to understand what a multi-system approach to reading support looks like, Learning Success All Access gives you the tools to build the foundational skills that school-based instruction too often leaves out.
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